In His Footsteps: St. Patrick of Ireland is one of the world's most popular saints. Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 461. Along with St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, the secular world shares our love of these saints.
A participle is very different from a gerund. While a gerund works as a noun, a participle works as an adjective. The purpose of an adjective is to describe a noun or a pronoun. Therefore, a participle always describes a noun or a pronoun in the same sentence. There are two kinds of participles: present participles and past participles.
Sometimes a word or phrase appears to be a verb when, in fact, itâs something else. Itâs important to look at the function that a word or phrase plays in a sentence before determining its part of speech. A gerund is a verb form that ends in -ing. A gerund phrase includes the gerund, plus any modifiers and complements. Gerunds and gerund phrases always function as nouns. They can act as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, predicate nominatives, or objects of a preposition in a sentence. To determine whether a word or phrase is functioning as a gerund versus a present participle, try replacing it with the word something. If something works in the sentence, then the word or phrase is a gerund. Climbing is not as easy as it looks. (Climbing is the gerund. It acts as a subject in the sentence.)